2021 Jul 11 - England out of Euro 2020
There’s an old expression about how fate only gave hope in order to dash it and how if luck is lady then her name is Miss Fortune, or possibly Nicola Sturgeon. Either way, the England team once more failed to win the Euro 2020 cup and once more it was on a penalty shootout, an Irony that was obviously not lost on Gareth Southgate, unlike the match itself. Marcus Rashford may have an MBE and he may be a passionate campaigner against child poverty and homelessness but at the end of the day all that social outreach stuff doesn’t leave a lot of time in his diary for practicing penalty kicks. Two of the players that missed were brought on minutes before the game ended, presumably with the sole job of “being good at penalties” and I really don’t blame the England team for prioritizing that as a specialist job but in retrospect it’s like hiring a pilot with a fear of heights or employing Michael Barrymore to be a pool attendant.
For me, it’s always interesting to see how articles are seemingly instantly published on news websites but then I guess part of writing for a newspaper is that stories will have been pre-written in advance and the editors were simply waiting until that final whistle in order to know which one to publish. In some respects things are made easier if the newspaper operates a separate printing operation in Scotland where the story about a once in a generation England victory can be very quickly edited into an article celebrating the Italian win.
Another interesting point in all of this is that if England had in fact won the cup then it would presumably put an end to the “Football’s coming home” song, the crux of which is that England haven't won anything in a long time. I’d genuinely like to know whether Baddiel & Skinner have an edit of that song ready to publish as soon as the facts change. It’s akin to the argument of what the Scottish National anthem would be in the event that independence was achieved, seeing as how the current one only makes sense if Scotland is under the brutal subjugation of the English parliament.
Anyway, only one year to go until the World Cup in Qatar and I do have the term “World” in the channel name so here’s some other quick stories I spotted. A man in Austria was bitten by a python this week after sitting on his toilet and it frankly serves him right for sitting on a snake’s toilet
Richard Branson blasted off into Space. I wish him the best of luck when he lands, discovers that they lost his luggage and he has to spend weeks tracking down the location of his camera.
Wildfires are destroying vast swathes of the Western US, yet another Hollywood remake. I recently googled how do wildfires start and it came back with a lot of matches.
For me, it’s always interesting to see how articles are seemingly instantly published on news websites but then I guess part of writing for a newspaper is that stories will have been pre-written in advance and the editors were simply waiting until that final whistle in order to know which one to publish. In some respects things are made easier if the newspaper operates a separate printing operation in Scotland where the story about a once in a generation England victory can be very quickly edited into an article celebrating the Italian win.
Another interesting point in all of this is that if England had in fact won the cup then it would presumably put an end to the “Football’s coming home” song, the crux of which is that England haven't won anything in a long time. I’d genuinely like to know whether Baddiel & Skinner have an edit of that song ready to publish as soon as the facts change. It’s akin to the argument of what the Scottish National anthem would be in the event that independence was achieved, seeing as how the current one only makes sense if Scotland is under the brutal subjugation of the English parliament.
Anyway, only one year to go until the World Cup in Qatar and I do have the term “World” in the channel name so here’s some other quick stories I spotted. A man in Austria was bitten by a python this week after sitting on his toilet and it frankly serves him right for sitting on a snake’s toilet
Richard Branson blasted off into Space. I wish him the best of luck when he lands, discovers that they lost his luggage and he has to spend weeks tracking down the location of his camera.
Wildfires are destroying vast swathes of the Western US, yet another Hollywood remake. I recently googled how do wildfires start and it came back with a lot of matches.
There’s an old expression about how fate only gave hope in order to dash it and how if luck is lady then her name is Miss Fortune, or possibly Nicola Sturgeon. Either way, the England team once more failed to win the Euro 2020 cup and once more it was on a penalty shootout, an Irony that was obviously not lost on Gareth Southgate, unlike the match itself. Marcus Rashford may have an MBE and he may be a passionate campaigner against child poverty and homelessness but at the end of the day all ......